Two charged in $1M burglary ring
LOWER MERION » Two men are being held on a combined $5.7 million in bail in connection with a burglary ring that police say netted over $1 million in stolen goods in a three-county area.
The suspects have been identified as Leroy Boose, 57, of Willingboro, N.J., and Anthony McDaniels, 50, of Philadelphia.
At a press conference Friday morning in Ardmore, law enforcement officials from Montgomery and Delaware counties showed a small sampling of items that were recovered after Boose and McDaniels were arrested in February. At that time, they were arrested in connection with a burglary in Lower Merion. Since then, prosecutors say, the pair has been linked to about 50 residential burglaries in Philadelphia, Montgomery and Delaware counties.
Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele said the arrests were the result of a task force that had been created after officials began seeing links in several burglaries.
“On Feb. 10, law enforcement was surveilling the defendants when they were observed burglarizing a residence in Lower Merion Township,” Steele said. “Members of the task force intercepted the defendants and arrested them.”
According to Steele, the burglaries generally occurred between dusk and midnight and several houses in close proximity to one another would be hit on the same night. They tended to look for homes that were dark and without a car in the driveway.
“In most cases, the bedrooms were ransacked, the jewelry taken and the homeowner’s pillow cases were used to carry out the stolen goods,” Steele said.
Some of the items on display in the Lower Merion boardroom during the press conference included large light fixtures, a bin of old collectible comic books, old clocks and a large statue. Steele said other items that had been stolen included taxidermied items, including a raccoon.
Friday morning, Boose was charged with an additional 36 burglaries and two attempted burglaries, while McDaniels was charged with an additional 41 burglaries and two attempted burglaries.
They are each facing multiple felony counts of burglary, criminal trespass, theft by unlawful taking and several other charges, Steele said.
When the two men were arraigned Friday morning in front of District Judge Karen Eisner Zucker, they were each given an additional $1 million bail. Due to the charges they were facing in February, Booth is now being held on $3 million bail, while McDaniels’s total bail is up to $2.7 million cash.
Of the 50 burglaries the men have been linked to so far, 38 took place in Montgomery County, primarily in Lower Merion, Abington and Cheltenham. Six occurred in the Haverford Township and Drexel Hill sections of Delaware County. The rest were mainly in the Chestnut Hill section of Philadelphia.
“The value of the property taken in the 50 burglaries was pegged at somewhere around $1 million,” Steele said. The cases have all been transferred to Montgomery County for prosecution.
“Today’s announcement is the result of the cooperative and collaborative effort between law enforcement — a partnership that is frankly crucial and instrumental in the success of this investigation and the apprehension of these defendants,” Delaware County District Attorney Katayoun Copeland said.
Abington police Chief Patrick Molloy said since April of 2017, police began believing there was a possible link between the dozens of burglaries that had been going on throughout the region. The suspects would look for homes that were dark or had mail piled up and knock on a door. Sometimes they would use a pretext of looking for an address if someone were to answer the door. If no one answered, one of the suspects went to the rear. A door or window would be forced open and portions of the home were ransacked.
According to Molloy, some of the details of the burglaries were similar to burglaries that had occurred in Cheltenham in 2010. In that case, McDaniels had been arrested and spent time in jail. They also knew McDaniels was a friend of Boose, so the men were identified as suspects. Members of the task force began watching them over several weeks.
In February, members of the task force watched them enter a pickup truck in Philadelphia and then drive to James Road in the Wynnewood section of Lower Merion. The task force at first lost sight of the men but then found them exiting a home with a pillowcase full of jewelry, and they were arrested, Molloy said.
Since the arrests in February, search warrants were issued at homes, an apartment, a box truck and storage bins where thousands of stolen items were found.
Lower Merion police Superintendent Mike McGrath said three rental trucks had to be used to collect the thousands of items recovered in the searches.
Steele said anyone who had been the victim of a recent burglary or robbery is encouraged to check the website showing the items at montcopa.org/3021/Burglary-Website. The website has images of items they hope to be able to return to the rightful owners.
Anyone finding their items on the website can contact Lower Merion police Officer Dwight Kongravy at dkondravy@lowermerion.org or call 610645-6234.